When Karen Hughes left, of course. I saw her hawking her book somewhere and, yes, she is the solid, clear voice that this administration has missed. WSJ Political Diary (you really should sign up) tells it like it is:
Like a beam of light cutting through sludge, Karen Hughes has hit the airwaves, in part to flog her newly published book, "Ten Minutes from Normal" -- about the journey that brought her to the White House, and the pull of family obligation that impelled her to go back to Texas seven months after the Sept.11 terror assault. The part dedicated to book-flogging was remarkably small. In one interview after another, including a lengthy one on "Charlie Rose," the president's counselor batted back charges and criticisms of George Bush and his decision to wage war in Iraq, and she did it with unyielding command, shrinking from nothing. To listen to her was to grasp the loss George Bush sustained when she decided to go back home to Texas. Things haven't been the same since, in the department of White House communication.Karen Hughes herself may not be quite the same person she was before she left -- at least, it's difficult to recall any other public moment like those we saw last night. Confronted with queries about Richard Clarke's accusations -- particularly about George Bush's alleged efforts lay blame for Sept.11 on Iraq -- she pointed out, in a no-nonsense tone, that Mr. Clarke hadn't been in on the post-Sept.11th Oval Office meetings. She had.
Every question of that kind tossed at her, she answered in kind -- with detail devastating to Mr. Bush's opponents. There are no spaces between clauses, no hesitations of any kind. This kind of focus and delivery doesn't come merely from a past in the TV business. Wherever it comes from, it is likely to do the Bush campaign -- which Ms. Hughes joins officially this summer -- a world of good. It doesn't hurt that her straightforward story about her decision to return to her family -- because you don't get a second chance at bringing your child up -- is irresistibly told. So is the memory she shares, in interviews, about the draft of the statement Ari Fleischer prepared for the president in the hours just after the terrorists struck. The first sentence, about America having been made a victim of a terrible attack, stopped her cold. Americans are not victims, she told him. She wouldn't have that word.
This is the sort of public voice the Bush campaign could use now -- one that reminds Americans of Sept. 11, and the defiance of the president who stood won their hearts, standing on that pile of rubble that was the World Trade Center.